Trump’s Racist Ad Aims For The Willie Horton Effect, Explained

The two ads are tied together by their blatant use of racism to exploit white fear of Black and brown people.

History was repeating itself with the release of President Donald Trump’s new dog-whistling political ad days before the crucial Midterm elections. It was reminiscent of the Republicans’ infamous Willie Horton spot that exploited white fear of Black men ahead of the 1988 presidential election.

Most of the nation learned about Horton from a 53-second ad intended to send white voters flocking to the polls to vote for then-Vice President George H.W. Bush in theoretical exchange for protection from the alleged hoards of Black criminals. Horton was a convicted murderer who raped a white woman while out of prison under a weekend furlough program.

With the debut of his new ad, the president was clearly taking a page from that racist playbook. He tweeted a video on Wednesday that blamed Democrats for allowing an undocumented Mexican immigrant for killing two California deputies and warns that liberals would allow hoards of Hispanic migrants into the country.

The video showed deputies removing Luis Bracamontes from a courtroom in February because of his outbursts about killing more cops, during his sentencing.

The parallels between each commercial were unavoidable. They are tied together by their blatant use of racism to exploit white fear of Black and brown people.

Trump blamed the Democrats for Bracamontes’ crime, and the Horton ad pinned the blame to Bush’s Democratic opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.

Both ads also tell big lies. Massachusetts was not the only state with a furlough program. More than 40 states had similar programs, the Washington Post pointed out in 1988 article. The federal government also had a furlough program in the 1980s.

Then-governor Michael Dukakis had supported the prison furlough program, and when he ran for President in 1988, his opponent, George H. W. Bush, used that to his advantage.

4. A challenge

I’m going to need @MichaelAvenatti to come on #RolandMartinUnfiltered to explain this “better be a white male” comment to @TIME. He says he never said it. But he needs to come talk to Black media. I’ve DM’d him. Waiting to hear back. This IS A PROBLEM.

10. Comedy

Continue reading Social Media Disowns Michael Avenatti After He Says Democrats Need ‘A White Male’ To Run For President

Social Media Disowns Michael Avenatti After He Says Democrats Need 'A White Male' To Run For President

[caption id="attachment_3833616" align="alignnone" width="812"] Source: Rich Polk / Getty[/caption]
It was all good just a week ago.
After riding high on the Blue wave of Democrats that's been mostly led by Black folks, Michel Avenatti all but lost the collective respect of African-Americans as soon as TIME published a story on Thursday quoting the lawyer insisting that he didn't want a Black person to run for president.
It's a little more complicated than that, but his min quote was jarring, to say the least. When asked who he wanted to see as the Democratic Party's nominee in 2020, Avenatti's answer was deliberate:
“I think it better be a white male,” he said before adding later: “When you have a white male making the arguments, they carry more weight.”
Avenatti's quotes were being circulated on social media just about an hour after Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley recommended the attorney who made a name representing a porn star be referred criminally to the Justice Department to be prosecuted for "potential violations" surrounding the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
https://twitter.com/PamelaGeller/status/1055524883323441152
That came a few days after a judge ordered Avenatti to pay nearly $5 million to a former colleague in a lawsuit over unpaid back wages.
The TIME story made Avenatti's bad week a lot worse ... until folks on social media got wind of the quotes, making Thursday perhaps the lawyer's worst seven-day stretch ever.
Avenatti was being called everything from a white supremacist sympathizer to a sexist to a wannabe "white male savior." In essence, Black Twitter disowned Avanatti after virtually adopting him for being so outspoken against the president.
But now it would appear that he and Trump are more alike than not. And with a wide range of related emotions, Twitter definitely wasn't having it.